the all girl army forums: IDEAS: Young Feminist Guide?

As most of us know, Heather is working dead hard on the publication of a long overdue book that will act as a guide for teenagers (and really, for anyone of any age) on the subjects of sex... ABC and XYZ. It is based on the real world, not reading like a High School health text book whose entire opinion on sex is "wait till marriage", but covering all of the tough topics from homosexuality to pornography. Knowing Heather, this book is going to be spectacular, and I can't wait to read it.

But it got me thinking... Wouldn't it be something if there were a similar guide for young women on feminism? I am sure that there are probably many such things out there already, just as there are already many sex-guides, but a lot of feminist writings directed at young people tends to be very ferocious and subliminally focused on "converting" the reader to a particular path of feminist thought. What if there were something out there that read a little less harsh and helped young women address the everyday issues of feminism that I am sure we all found ourselves questioning at some point, whether or not we identified as feminists or even knew what feminism was?

Something that talks about sexist behaviors girls will face at school, lookism pressures they will face in the media, gender role expectations they may face from their family, reproductive health choices they may have to face, female history myths they will be persuaded to believe, and of course that big ugly topic of pornography that just gets three times as complicated when you're adding feminism to the mix. Something non-judgemental that gives girls a different way of looking at their lives, and provides many unbiased views from several walks of feminism on each individual subject. Something that is not written as "heavy" as so much feminist writing is, but that is light and easy for a young female to start out with. Something to help them cope.

What would you want to see in such a guide? How do you think that the information could be presented as cleanly and basically as possible without seeming to give biased support to any one feminist walk or another, considering the sheer impossibility of equally accounting for all angles? How does one whiddle it down to what is important for a young girl to hear in her everyday life, who may or may not have any interest in feminism what-so-ever?

I really wish that there were something like this out there, because though we all acknowledge that the teenage years come with a lot of awkward difficulties and adjustments, not much attention seems to be paid to the unique struggle of girls, besides exploiting magazines that "sympathise" with a young girl's quest for boyfriends and pretty shoes and help her out as best they can. (Gag.)

Well? Ideas?

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~Meddle not in the affairs of Dragons, for thou art crunchy and taste good with ketchup.